51 Million Reasons Why You Should Invest

Now, if you’re not familiar with Berkshire’s annual meeting, you need to know that it is huge. Yesterday’s meeting was held at CenturyLink Center, which has a capacity of over 17,000 people. They sold out of tickets!

Put this in perspective. This is a company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, not a Justin Bieber concert!

If you are an investment geek like me, you spent your Saturday morning listening to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger answer numerous questions about Berkshire Hathaway’s business, the potential trade war, and the future of business in America.

If you’ve never read or listened to any of Buffett’s wisdom, I highly recommend you do so. His investment philosophy is profound in its simplicity and very easy for the layman to understand and implement: Find great companies, buy them at an attractive price, and never sell them. That’s it. That’s his philosophy.

Yesterday, part of Buffett’s presentation included going back to 1942 and looking at all of the disastrous headlines that dominated the news at that time, and over the past 50 years.

In doing so, he wanted to demonstrate that no matter what current events were taking place at the time, investing in America in the long run was going to be profitable.

He used as an example $10,000 invested in the equivalent of the S&P 500 in 1942. He asked the audience to silently guess what that investment would be worth today.

The answer: $51 million!

We are talking about a one-time investment of $10,000, reinvesting your dividends and not investing a penny more. It would be worth $51 million today.

In 2018, investing in an S&P 500 or other index fund is 10 times easier than it was in 1942. What are you waiting for???

You or I may not have 76 years to wait, but your kids sure as hell do. And I believe that if the last 76 years can produce $51 million, the next 76 could well produce $100 million.

Imagine setting up future generations with a $100 million fortune because you had the foresight to look at the next 76 years, believe that they would be more profitable than the past 76, and invest based upon that belief. Think of your great-great-grandchildren honoring you because your foresight in investing wisdom has now afforded them a life that may not have been possible otherwise.